Casualties (16 page)

She needed some aspirin. Antacids too. Coffee. Something, anything to get her going. She started down the hall to her own bathroom but stopped when she saw her laptop on her office desk, open but dormant. What would she find in her e-mail inbox if she looked? The red light on the phone blinked like a warning. The mortuary was waiting for a response. In a few hours, there would be more messages, calls from Terri, a funeral checklist to make. Terri. She might not say another word about the contractors, but Ruth knew she'd be thinking about them, and Ruth would have to think about them too.

The desire to escape rose, sudden and swift, like a pot boiling over. Everywhere Ruth looked there was something she wanted to get away from: the phone, the laptop, the house that echoed with accusation. She looked down at the denim jacket and the rabbit that somehow was still in her arms. She'd take it with her. She'd take Robbie too. They couldn't scatter his ashes until she was ready, and she wasn't ready.

A thump from the front curb startled her. The newspaper, now surely lying somewhere near the front door. A radio blared, then faded. The day was already moving forward. In a little while, Neal
would pass her house on his way back from the beach. He'd said he would call. He might stop in. If he did, then somehow, she knew, she might give in to his suggestions, she might let Terri make all the arrangements. She might let go.

Ruth raced back into the guest room and began to stuff everything she could reach into Robbie's duffel. The rabbit, his clothes, the photo album. She snatched the duffel strap. Too heavy. Didn't matter. She dragged the whole thing to the bathroom and slammed her palm into the light switch. His Dopp kit. She pulled it off the shelf over the sink and unzipped the top. She grabbed the toothbrush from the holder and jammed it in. His razor, too.

Her nose filled with Robbie's scent. She wheeled around and ripped the towel hanging from the rack. She buried her face in it. Everything. She would take everything.

She ran down the hall to the garage, flung open the door, and stuffed the trunk of the Jaguar with Robbie's things. Then back in her office, flying now, she scribbled the phone number of the mortuary. She flipped down the top of her computer. She'd better take it. She didn't know when she'd be coming
back.

Casey floated in the space between sleep and the start of another day. The desert afternoon was poaching him in his own bed, but Casey didn't try to surface. He lingered in half consciousness as he did on the casino floor, not taking a step toward a table until the day's luck could find him and reveal itself.

His cell phone toned from somewhere in the back of the trailer. He squeezed his eyes tight, trying to drift a little longer, but the phone continued to harangue him. Where was it? He visualized the black clamshell and saw it folded in the pocket of yesterday's jeans, now pooled on the floor outside the toilet closet, right next to the faker and all the gear that went with it.
Shit.
Pinned by the heat to his pull-down bed, he stared at a tear in the vinyl ceiling, willing the phone to go silent. Then, to his surprise, it did.

Casey worked his mouth, trying to dredge up enough saliva for a good swallow, but all he got was the aftertaste of tequila, too many Camels, and the familiar feeling that he'd fucked up. He'd won, hadn't he? Enough to get good and drunk after and still have enough to send Emily. He'd go mail her the money right after breakfast.
Then he'd drive into Vegas, treat himself to a woman and a good book until it was time to hit the tables again.

Then he remembered the El Camino. The front tire had blown out on the way home last night. He'd driven the last three miles on the rim.

The phone shrilled again but Casey wasn't listening. He was thinking about how he could still make the day work. He propped himself up on one elbow and shook his head, jostling ideas, looking to see where they fell. Nothing. Beside him a set of red digits told him it was 1:17 p.m.

He began to push himself upright but fell back when his head began to pound. Hangover headache. Or maybe he was just hungry. He hadn't had anything but a sandwich since yesterday afternoon and those pretzel twigs they served at the blackjack tables with the drinks.

He sat up again, slower this time, and inched his right leg to the edge of the thin mattress, finding the floor with his foot. Then he swung the stump of his left leg next to it and peered at the bulb of flesh just below his knee. The skin was a little pink, nothing to be worried about. He started to pull himself up when a fist pounded against the metal door of the trailer.

“Casey MacInerney, you better be in there and you better have my rent money.” The nicotine-scarred drawl lacked the sleepy quality he normally associated with its owner, his landlady, Belva Pointer.

“Go away, Belva,” he yelled.

“Not today, sunshine. I already cut you enough slack. You owe me two months back rent. I'm not runnin' a charity here.”

A key rattled in the lock of the door.

“Jesus Christ, Belva, get out. I'm naked.”

“Ain't nothin' to get excited about, from where I'm standin',” Belva said. Her frame filled the edges of the narrow doorway like a trapped hot air balloon. Casey grabbed the sheet he'd been lying
on and yanked the edges off the mattress, folding it over himself like a diaper.

“Where's my rent money, Casey Mac?” She was smiling at him, but her eyes were pellets.

“If you had called like a civilized human being, you could have saved yourself some trouble.”

“Oh, but I did call you, darlin'. Called you a bunch of times last night and then again this morning. I just finished calling you. I could hear your phone ringing from outside. When you didn't answer I got kinda worried about you. Then I got worried about me and my rent money. You owe me two months. Jeezus, what's that smell? Somethin' die in here?”

Belva peered into the dusky heat of the trailer, her penciled eyebrows aiming down in disgust. Everything on Belva was aiming down—eyes melting into jowls, jowls into neck, neck into breasts straining against a leopard print tank top that could give way at any moment. The only thing that stood up on Belva was her hair and that, Casey knew, was because it was a wig. Orange coils rose like tongues above a fringe of shiny copper bangs that didn't move as she swung her head from side to side.

“You're looking particularly lovely today, Belva. You've really nailed that bovine look.”

Belva's eyes stopped moving and fixed on him suspiciously. “Compliments won't pay the rent.”

“My disability check's coming this week. You'll get your money.”

“That's what you said last week. And the week before that.” Belva looked around again. Casey had pulled the pleated blackout curtains across the skinny trailer windows, but light peeked out on either side and through a few holes in the limp fabric. “You sure somethin' ain't dead in here?” She stepped farther into the trailer and knocked into his bookshelf, a strip of paneling sagging under the weight of battered paperbacks and his few treasured hardcovers.

“Be careful, for Christ's sake,” Casey said, and then he saw that Belva's eyes were moving again and he remembered his wallet, lying open and defenseless just out of reach. She spotted it before he could distract her.

“No!” Casey lunged but fell sideways on the bed.

She laughed and two seconds later she was brandishing his wallet in her fat white fist.

“Feels in here like you had a good night last night, Mr. MacInerney.”

“Give me that wallet, Belva!”

“What's this?” Belva flipped open the wallet and stared at a frayed snapshot of a little girl with serious eyes and no front teeth. “Cute little thing—someone you know or are you one of those pervs? Don't tell me. I don't want to know.”

“Give me my goddamned wallet, Belva.”

“Oh I will, darlin', I will. Just need to get somethin' of mine out first.”

She was as good as her word. Casey watched helplessly as she extracted the cash and tucked most of it into the money pouch she hid beneath the rolls of fat around her waist.

“That'll do it until Thursday. Then you'll owe me for next month.”

Belva paused, a twenty fluttering from her fat fingers. “Lunch money,” she said. She tucked the bill into the wallet and flipped it onto his lap.

The snapshot of the child fell out of its torn plastic sleeve onto the dirty sheet beside him. It trembled in the faint, hot breath of the table fan. Casey read in the girl's eyes a question he could not answer. He drove his fist into the mattress. Then he snatched up the wallet and hurled it against the trailer door as Belva slammed it behind her.

Habit guided Ruth toward the freeway. She accelerated past banks of oleander, blind to the shimmer of white, pink, and crimson. Above, the sky was fading to the color of Robbie's old denim jacket. She'd pulled it back on, after swallowing two aspirins and an antacid and splashing water on her face. She wore it into the gas station where she'd bought some coffee and a stale bagel. She wore it into the mortuary office where she waited for the startled receptionist to get someone to help her. She kept it on after she'd carefully wrapped the metal box marked with Robbie's name in a towel that still smelled like him and secured it in the trunk.

The box had been heavy in her arms, the weight of a baby.

Through her tears, Ruth saw the sign for the RyCom exit. She sped by it.

She saw Robbie's smile in his boot camp portrait on her desk. She heard the catch in his voice when he asked her to lunch.

We'll have lots of time,
she heard herself say.

Then she remembered what Neal had said.
You stood him up?

Up ahead traffic snarled to a stop, blocking the lanes north. Ruth lurched to the right-hand lane that would take her east. A horn blasted behind her but she ignored it. She had to keep moving, it didn't matter where, she just had to get away. She turned up the radio and stepped on the gas.

—

What's the plan, Casey man?” The voice was too big and too smooth to belong to the wiry little man behind the cash register at the Cactus Gardens Mobile Home Café and General Store. Casey usually liked it when Lenny practiced for the jazz disc jockey job he'd never had and never would, but today, Lenny triggered a vibration in Casey's head that rattled his teeth.

“Jesus Christ, Len. Can't you say anything without making a rhyme out of it?”

“What's got you in such a sunny frame of mind?”

Casey pushed his Ray-Bans up on his forehead and struggled to catch his breath. Hauling himself through the 110-degree heat had kicked his headache back into gear. He leaned on the counter inside the entrance of the coffee shop that doubled as a convenience store. No noise from the other side of the cinder-block wall separating them from the showers and the Laundromat. Good. He jumped as a trumpet sliced through the static on the little black radio Lenny brought in every day because Belva was too damn cheap.

“And here comes Mr. Wynton Marsalis with—”

“Jesus, Len, turn that down, will you?” Casey said. The air conditioner prickled his skin under the black T-shirt he wore. Now he was cold, goddamn it.

“You okay?” Lenny leaned over the counter to peer up into Casey's eyes, pools of concern behind the glasses that were too big for his shriveled brown face. Casey wanted to laugh but he couldn't find it in him. He settled for a lopsided smirk and pushed himself
up and away from Lenny so that he was standing, legs a little apart, shoulders back, hands loose at his sides. Ready position.

“Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Just hungry.”

Lenny busied himself with something behind the counter.

“No cash, no hash,” Lenny mumbled. “Belva's orders.”

“Old orders, Len. I'm all paid up with Belva.”

“You are?”

“She broke in this morning and emptied my wallet. Took everything I had.”

“She did that?”

“Yeah, she did. Least she can do is stake me to a little breakfast.”

“Mmmm,” Lenny said. His hand found its way to the back of his head, which was as bald as every other part of it. He looked once over each shoulder, then back at Casey. “Every cent, huh?”

Casey tried not to think about the twenty he'd jammed into his jeans pocket, looked Lenny in the face, and nodded.

“Yeah. Over four hundred—that should take care of me for a long time.”

“Guess a couple of eggs wouldn't hurt.”

“I was thinking more like a steak. You know, with some of those potatoes you make and some eggs on the side.” This might be his one meal today and he knew that Lenny had already given in.

He sat down while the little man poured a mug of coffee from a stained decanter and plunked it down. Then Lenny tucked a dishrag into his belt for an apron and began to slice some onions.

“Four hundred—your luck is turnin'.”

“Yeah, but now I've got nothing to get me started for tonight.” Casey let the statement sit there and waited to see what Lenny did with it. But Lenny just threw the onions in the skillet he'd started on the stove and stooped to get the meat out of the little fridge under the prep counter. Casey tried again.

“You know, I could make you a little money.”

“That's okay, Casey Mac. If I want to piss away my Social Security check I can do that all by myself.”

“C'mon, Lenny.” Casey's fingers drummed the counter. His good leg jiggled.

Lenny shook his head. “Uh-uh. You just come off a pretty bad losing streak.”

“Yeah, but like you said, my luck is turning.”

“Hmmh.” Lenny stirred the onions and flipped the steak. “Even a blind hog finds the trough once in a while. Doesn't mean I'm bettin' on him to do it every time.”

“Wrong handicap, Lenny. I'm a gimp, not blind. I'll win you some cash, c'mon.” Casey hated the way the words wobbled out of him. He sounded like a whining kid.

He caught his reflection distorted in the aluminum along the back of the prep counter. Shaggy hair, yellow streaks fighting with gray ones across the top. Smudges for eyes and a nose that, in the rippling metal, lumped its way down his face like a root vegetable. He looked like crap and, on top of that, he was back to square one. The thought of his four hundred in Belva's money pouch sickened him.

Casey leaned onto the counter and ground his forehead against his palms. He needed to get more money or this would be the first month in nearly twelve years that he'd fail to send a little something over and above the child support deducted from his disability check.

“Eggs up, over, or scrambled?”

Lenny stood at the grill with an egg in one hand and a spatula in the other. “Up,” Casey said, but he didn't really care. He only cared about the money, the one thing he could give her. She was seventeen now. There were a lot of ways a seventeen-year-old kid could use four hundred bucks. Maybe she'd put it away for college. He hoped so. He'd planned to buy a card and sign it this time,
Love, Dad
.

Fucking Belva.

The smell of onions and hot steak brought him back. He watched Lenny shake the frying pan back and forth over the flame. He leaned closer and his mood wrapped itself around this small success. He was about to eat and he still had a twenty in his pocket. He was hungry, that's all. He'd feel better when he had some food in him. He could get Lenny to give him a ride to the casino, and after that, forget him, forget Belva. He'd figure something out. He always did.